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This paper reviews the recent development of the scientific, legislative, economic and environmental aspects of plant organic farming. The impact of organic farming on biodiversity and soil fertility is discussed in comparison with conventional systems. A significant barrier for wide application and future development of organic farming is the existing diversity of national and international policy instruments in this sector. Special attention is paid to up-to-date research techniques that could help solve a number of the problems typically faced in plant organic farming. It is argued that organic farming is still not productive enough to be considered fully sustainable. This underlines the necessity of strong support for more effective implementation of scientific research innovations and improvement of the networking between all stakeholders – organic producers, scientists and corresponding policy makers at the national and international level.

Grasslands, mixture of grass, clover and other leguminous species, dicotyledonous, herbs and shrubs, contribute to a high degree to the struggle against erosion and to the regularizing of water regimes, to the purification of fertilizers and pesticides and to biodiversity and they have aesthetic role and recreational function as far as they provide public access that other agricultural uses do not allow. Grassland will continue to be an important form of land use in Europe, but with increased diversity in management objectives and systems used. Besides its role as basic nutrient for herbivores and ruminants, grasslands have opportunities for an adding value by exploiting positive health characteristics in animal products from grassland and through the delivery of environmental benefits. But even for grassland it is very difficult to create a good frame for its different tasks (1) the provision of forage for livestock, (2) protection and conservation of soil and water resources, (3) furnishing a habitat for wildlife, both flora and fauna and (4) contribution to the attractiveness of the landscape. Nevertheless it is the only crop able to fulfil so many tasks and to fit so many requirements. In this article the focus is limited to the grass and clover components of the grasslands.

Arnica montana L. (Asteraceae) is a valuable medicinal plant with anti-inflammatory and cicatrizing properties attributed to the sesquiterpene lactones, flavonoids and essential oil produced in the flower heads. In many European countries, the populations of A. montana are close to extinction in their natural habitats because of uncontrolled eradication and indiscriminate collection of the plants. Various approaches for in vitro propagation of the species and also, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites in tissue and cell cultures are assessed in the current review. Special attention is paid to the biological activity and chemical composition of compounds produced by the species as well as the opportunities of in vitro methods to isolate high-productive clones. The influence of different factors on the micropropagation, callusogenesis, genetic transformation and identification of certain biologically active substances is discussed in detail. By the reference to the available issues we concluded that biotechnology applied to A. montana cultivation may improved the plant preservation and increased the production of sesquiterpene lactones and other secondary metabolites.

Insertion mutant collections are powerful tools for genetic studies in plants. Although large-scale insertional mutagenesis using T-DNA is not feasible in legumes, the Tnt1 tobacco retrotransposon can be used as a very efficient mutagen in the Medicago truncatula R108 genotype. In this article, we show that Tnt1 can also be exploited to create insertional mutants via transformation and/or regeneration in the reference cultivar Jemalong. Tnt1 insertional mutagenesis in Jemalong following Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation was found to be very efficient, with an average of greater than 15 insertions/line. In contrast, regeneration using low-copy transgenic starter lines resulted in a highly variable rate of new Tnt1 insertions. With the goal of increasing the number of additional Tnt1 insertions during regeneration of starter lines, we have compared the insertion frequencies for a number of different regeneration protocols. In addition, we have been able to show that sucrose-mediated osmotic shock preceding regeneration significantly increases the transposition frequency. Under optimal conditions, 95% of the regenerated Jemalong plants possess new insertions.

The establishment of transgenic tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) lines expressing human acidic fibroblast growth factor (haFGF) was reported. A nonantibiotic selection involving the manA gene from E. coli that confers resistance to mannose was applied. The transgenic nature of four selected tomato lines cultivar Bela was proved with PCR analysis. The expression of the gene for haFGF was confirmed with RT-PCR analysis and the protein synthesis was quantified with ELISA. A step of purification of haFGF from plant tissue was also performed and the probes were subjected to immunodetection with anti-haFGF and anti-His-tag antibodies. The portion of the recombinant protein out of the total soluble protein extracted from leaves was 0.0015%. In order to evaluate the risk of unintended negative effects of the ripe transgenic tomato fruits, toxicity safety assessment with laboratory mice was carried out including weight analysis, morphophysiological indices and blood parameters measurements. Our data showed that the transgenic fruits as a novel modified product do not pose a risk of intoxication upon the treated animals. Allergenicity evaluation of both recombinant proteins haFGF and phosphomannose isomerase, the product of the selectable marker gene, via alignment of their sequences with those of known allergens did not reveal any sufficient similarity.

Recent EU regulations recommend restriction of the use of medical devices in which cobalt content exceeds 0.1%. Commercially pure titanium (cpTi) and titanium alloys appear to be excellent alternatives to cobalt-based alloys in the fields of implantology and prosthodontics. The narrative review summarizes the structure and types of titanium alloys and the methods of their processing. The high biocompatibility of titanium is explained in terms of corrosion, ion release, and interaction with the biological environment. An analysis of existing studies on the mechanical properties of titanium prosthetic restorations is presented, and future perspectives are outlined.